Doctor putting words to life

How to stay focused

No matter what is going on in my life. Exam season or no exam season. A busy day or a lazy day, the underlying mission of my day is always “how can I be better”.

I extend this to every aspect of my life and this mission to be better could range from learning a better way to look after my skin to a better technique to perform a clinical procedure. Whatever.

If I see someone doing something well I always think, how can I do that? How can I better myself? It’s not a competitive thing with that person, it’s purely me wanted to improve myself.

My friend once commented that it must be quite tiring being me, and I do understand her point, because always trying to be the best in every aspect could be tiring. But it’s only tiring if you don’t accept that you will fail. Because no one is perfect.

I fail to be the best me all the time. If you have seen me around exam season you can vouch for the less than best Salma coming out. Less Carrie Bradshaw and more Coco, the homeless sister they never let on screen. But even getting half way there, ok, a quarter of the way, is better than where I started off. Which suits me just fine. And I’m not afraid to fail.

Obviously my motivation fluctuates. And on those days that I feel like I need an extra boost I will actively work on re-focusing on what is important to me and getting my life together or “fixing-up” as I call it.

I thought I would share what I do help keep myself focused as it might help on of you. I would love to hear what you do.

1- Look at “Project 2015”.

At the start of this year I sat down with a folder, some A4 dividers, A4 lined paper and a pen and tried to divide up every aspect of my life.

My first page instead of “resolutions” has “Main aims” that I want achieve by the end of the year. Some are very specific and some of more general. I would love to share them but I think I already share a lot of myself on this blog and would prefer to keep this to myself.

An example could be:

Buy a car

Run a 10 K

Since this is on my first page, I see it every time I look at my folder and it’s a good little push to fix up if I’m way of target! Things might change and that’s fine, but it’s always good to re-evaluate.

Next I divided every section of my life up. I have a section for everything that is important for me. Over 20 dividers…what can I say, I care about a lot!

An example of sections I have are:

Finances

Relationships- to make sure that I give my friends and family enough time. I made a list of all the people I want to spend time with to make sure that it is never too long before I see someone. I am generally quite good at keeping in contact but it is useful to have a list.

Religion- things I want to do more often, or learn about

CAPS – a logbook we had to fill out at Med School…

Usually looking at this folder is enough to help me get back on track. It helps that I have already spent the time dividing up my life (or trying to).

Obviously, these dividers don’t solve all of life’s problems but it helps having them in small chunks!

This is the first year that I have ever done this but it has really helped so far. I use to envy super organised people and it has been a real effort for me to try and be more organised but it is worth the effort.

2- If I’m really stuck I will listen to a great TED talk.

I tend to listen to the same talks again because there is a message that I feel I need to get.

It is terrifying and but also very motivating for me. Guaranteed that at the end of the talk I will want to go for a run or eat some goji berries and do some yoga. Ok I exaggerated, but you know what I mean. It gives me a clarity of thought that can get lost in the general noise of life.

If that hasn’t helped (and that would be very unusual for me) I will watch some Oprah Super Soul Sunday.

Just as a little disclaimer, this might sound like a lot of organisation but my life isn’t a cardboard cut out of perfection! It is messy just like everyone else’s, but I just wanted to highlight some of the useful things that I do in my life that help me out. I think if you have something to work towards, it makes getting what you want a lot easier.